Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post
Newsgroups: americast.wpost
From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com
Organization: American Cybercasting
Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com
Subject: The Homeless, the Dead and the MissingBy Jack Anderson and Michael Binstein
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 09:18:27 EST
Message-ID: <9.1992Nov22.091827@AmeriCast.com>

The Homeless, the Dead and the MissingBy Jack Anderson and Micha-
el Binstein FLORIDA CITY, Fla. - Len DeCarlo, spokesman for the
Federal Emergency Management Agency in Miami, says there are no
homeless people that he "knows of" in the town of Florida City,
Fla., one of the communities hardest hit by Hurricane Andrew on
Aug. 24.

 That depends on how one defines homeless.  Relief workers on the
front line, for example, relate the story of an elderly woman
found lying in the remains of her bedroom, gazing at the sky
through a gaping hole in her roof. She couldn't contact the local
FEMA office because she was a double amputee.

 Why would FEMA deny the existence of homelessness in Florida
City? It seems to come almost reflexively to an agency that is
forced to devote so much time to damage control of the PR
variety.

 The embattled agency has received better reviews here than for
its work following 1989's Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina. FEMA
has cut more than 44,000 checks for some $92 million as part of
its disaster housing program alone.

 But in a town where the welfare office is double the size of
city hall, many of Andrew's victims are still spending their
nights in cardboard boxes, lean-tos or in the dilapidated remains
of their former homes. Some still sleep in their cars.

Driving through the stricken area, one sees eerie signs of human-
ity, but no habitat. Those who lived in trailer parks before the
storm are the lucky ones - most evacuated the area as their form-
er homes were reduced to scrap metal by Andrew's wrath.

For an area that never had much faith in government to begin
with, there's alarm that the death toll from Andrew has been
minimized by federal authorities. Nearly everybody believes the
number runs in the thousands, while the official count is less
than a hundred. People here talk of friends and relatives who
have simply vanished without a trace.  Relief volunteer Kim Ter-
ry, who waited out the storm in the Florida Keys, says that he
doesn't believe the death toll and cites the fact that authori-
ties evacuated more than 200,000 people from the Keys straight
into the eye of the hurricane. A red Fiat belonging to a close
friend was found twisted into a "licorice stick" along the high-
way heading north from the Keys. This friend is among those list-
ed as "missing."

 To be sure, Florida City was a disaster area before the hurri-
cane, consistently rated as among the 10 least desirable places
to live in the United States, and plagued by drugs and corrup-
tion.  After the local McDonald's, the crack business is one of
the few that's back on its feet after the storm.

 If the town was bad before Hurricane Andrew and worse in its
aftermath, many here fear that the worst is yet to come.  Federal
inspectors have now finished inspecting the wreckage and have de-
cided that any dwelling with more than 50 percent total damage
will have to be bulldozed by the city.

 Volunteers fear that this will create a new homeless class out
of those who are now living in the remains of their homes. Though
FEMA promises that anyone in need will get a trailer, there are
those who doubt the ability of the federal government to help
those whose homes are bulldozed, especially since many are recent
immigrants and lack proper documentation.

 To replace the torn-down homes, the local government has plans
for bringing in an outside architect to redesign and rebuild
Florida City into a model community. But that also raises new
questions to some. "They want to make this area another Palm
Beach. But how can these people afford to live there?" said An-
thony Jacobs, another volunteer at PHP.

 "There are between three to five thousand people here still
suffering so bad I wouldn't wish it on an enemy," he said.

 1992, United Feature Syndicate Inc.=02:10 11-22C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor-
poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)